Page 141 of Hard Heart

Instead of stopping in the corridor, she carried on walking. This time, the soldier didn’t say a word, just watched expressionless as I followed Alexa to the room I’d borrowed earlier. The bed had been pushed to the side, and more chairs had appeared, all clustered around a table stacked with food. Ari was there, and Dice, and a handsome man I didn’t recognise. Alexa waved a hand at him.

“This is Cole. Jez’s boyfriend.”

He looked about as good as I felt.

“I’m Serafina. Uh, I’m so sorry about…everything.”

“Bella doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“Bella?”

He shrugged. “She has a bunch of names. That’s the one I use.”

“Jez has a broken leg, three cracked ribs, a fractured collarbone, a concussion, several lacerations, and too many bruises to count,” Alexa said. “Also her hair got singed, and she’s pissed about that.”

“The docs are saying she’ll need at least three months off work,” Dice added, and Cole rolled his eyes.

“If the previous broken leg is any indication, she’ll be jumping out of an airplane by next Friday,” he said.

Alexa opened a box of fancy croissants filled with ham and cheese and chocolate. Not all in the same croissant—that would be disgusting. The sweet and savoury were separate.

“Last time, they gave her a 3D-printed cast, and she used it to club a drug dealer.”

Dice helped herself to a pain au chocolat. “The injuries are nothing new, but she’s acting weird. When Priest showed up, she pretended to be asleep instead of speaking with him.”

“Huh.”

“She has a concussion,” Chase reminded them.

“Well, let’s hope her head isn’t too fuzzy—we have a debrief scheduled for eleven.”

They couldn’t cut her even twenty-four hours of slack?

“Do I need to be a part of that?” I asked.

Dice shook her head. “We can talk separately afterward.”

“So I should stay here?”

“If the doctor okays it, you can go home.”

“Did you mean it when you said you’d sort out transport? Because my car’s still at the airport, and I don’t even know where we are to call a cab.”

“Your Honda is at your apartment, and we’ll arrange a car and driver to take you there.”

That should have been a relief, and yet…

“How’s the bodyguard situation? I only ask because if you’re all here, it’ll just be the Diamondback Devils following me around, which used to feel like enough, but then these people kidnapped my sister from a freaking airport.”

“We believe the threat level has dropped, but we’ll know more after we speak with Jez.”

“I need to visit Levi too. On Monday, hopefully, as long as I can get a motel room, because I don’t have the energy to drive there and back in one day.”

“Don’t worry about driving,” Alexa said. “We can lease a helicopter.”

“What?”

“A he-li-cop-ter.”